Orenco station (TriMet)
Orenco, formerly known as Orenco/Northwest 231st Avenue, is a light rail station in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States, served by TriMet as part of its MAX Light Rail system. It is the sixth eastbound stop on the Blue Line, which connects the cities of Hillsboro, Beaverton, Portland, and Gresham. The island platform station is situated between the and stations and serves the Orenco Station neighborhood. The neighborhood is considered a positive model for smart growth and transit-oriented development, and is home to Intel's Ronler Acres campus.
An Oregon Electric Railway depot of the same name served the nearby area in the early 20th century. The TriMet station was built as part of the Westside MAX project, which extended MAX service from downtown Portland to downtown Hillsboro in 1998. With the city's renaming of Northwest 231st Avenue to Northeast Century Boulevard in 2017, TriMet simplified the station's name to its current form. The station includes a 125-space park and ride lot, secure bike parking, and a connection to TriMet's 47–Baseline/Evergreen bus line.
History
The station is named for the former company town of Orenco, a community founded in 1906 by the Salem-based Oregon Nursery Company, which had purchased of land in Washington County as part of a plan to expand its operations in the Portland area. The Oregon Electric Railway made the town a part of its branch line between Portland and Forest Grove in 1908 at the behest of the company, laying tracks through nursery property and building a depot just east of where the present light rail station is located. In 1913, the year the town incorporated, the Orenco depot served an average of 1,000 passengers per month. The outbreak of World War I resulted in severe economic setbacks for the Oregon Nursery Company, having disrupted its plans to expand into Europe. Following years of financial hardship, the company filed for bankruptcy and closed in 1927. In 1932, the Oregon Electric Railway's branch service ceased as a result of the Great Depression and competition from automobiles. The city government was dissolved in 1938.The former town and its vicinity remained rural for decades after, becoming known primarily as a site for illegal dumping. In the 1950s, much of the area was subdivided and sold to development ventures, many of which failed. The city of Hillsboro initiated annexation plans and consolidation of land ownership with the creation of an urban renewal district in 1983. Consolidated land was later sold to Intel and Pacific Realty Associates, the latter of which would eventually develop the transit-oriented, mixed-use community of Orenco Station.
Planning for a light rail line extending west from Portland began in 1979, with initial plans terminating at 185th Avenue, east of the old Orenco townsite. The efforts of Hillsboro Mayor Shirley Huffman and others helped to extend the planned line farther west, through Orenco to downtown Hillsboro, in July 1993. The cost of the Hillsboro extension, estimated at $224 million, required approval for an additional $75 million of federal funding, which was granted in 1994. TriMet began construction of the Westside MAX project in August 1993; track construction between 12th Avenue and 185th Avenue in Hillsboro, the segment which included Orenco, commenced in April 1996. The line was scheduled to open from Portland to 185th Avenue in 1997, and to Hillsboro in 1998, but delays during the construction of the Robertson Tunnel pushed most of its opening back by one year. Orenco station opened along with the rest of the Westside MAX line on September 12, 1998.
In September 2017, the station was renamed from Orenco/Northwest 231st Avenue to simply Orenco, in connection with street-name changes approved by the Hillsboro city council in October 2016. The changes included the January 2017 renaming of Northwest 231st Avenue within Hillsboro as Northeast Century Boulevard.
Station details
Located south of Northeast Cornell Road on Northeast Orenco Station Loop and west of Northeast Century Boulevard, the station serves the Orenco Station neighborhood and was within TriMet's fare zone 3 until the agency discontinued all use of fare zones in 2012. Designed by OTAK Inc., it features an island platform between the two tracks that consists of a shelter, ticket vending machines, and a passenger information display. The station includes a 24-hour park and ride lot with 125 spaces and a nearby 50-space secure bike parking facility operated by BikeLink. Between the station and Northeast Cherry Drive is Plaza Park, a public plaza bounded by mid-rise, mixed-use buildings that collectively make up the Platform District.Transit-oriented development
During Orenco station's early planning stages, the city of Hillsboro and TriMet imposed high-density development restrictions, despite the opposition of existing residents. In April 1994, Hillsboro approved an interim ordinance detailing planning standards for the area within a quarter-mile to a half-mile of the station, setting a population density goal of 45 residents per acre. The Orenco Neighborhood Association challenged the ordinance in the Oregon Court of Appeals; the court ruled in favor of the city in July 1995. Two months later, a compromise was reached to allow granny-flat homes to be included in the zoning plans, lowering the initial density target to 34.5 residents per acre.Pacific Reality Associates, which acquired of land near the station, developed much of the Orenco Station neighborhood. In the late 1990s, the developer built 450 homes on lots averaging, about twenty percent smaller than a typical lot at the time, with floor plans that averaged ; 1,400 apartments; retail stores; and offices.
The area immediately north of the station, among the last parcels of land to be filled, was approved for development in 2013. The $120 million Platform District, developed by Holland Partners Group, features three six-story, mixed-use buildings that include more than 1,000 housing units and of retail space. The first of the three buildings, "The Hub", was completed in February 2015. At the district's center is Plaza Park, a half-acre urban plaza that consists of a water feature, a colorful pergola, and a raised deck built around two white oak trees. The plaza is designed to host outdoor public events.
Public art
Artwork at the station follows the themes of a celebration of trees and the history of Orenco. The artwork incorporates a grove of trees adjacent to the station that was preserved at the behest of the artists in charge of the artwork for the stop. Individual works of art include Rings of Memory Plaza, which consists of concentric circles of granite inscribed with text by Oregon Poet Laureate Kim Stafford. Another piece is a gravel path with stone seat walls leading to an old oak grove entitled Witness Tree Rest, which includes another line by Stafford inscribed on the granite threshold at the east end of the path. Grafted Path, a pathway that connects the station to Northeast Century Boulevard, illustrates the grafting method that distinguished Oregon Nursery Company trees. East of the station is Grove of Perspective, made up of rows of trees that create optical effects when viewed from the moving train.On the platform is a piece entitled Branch Benches, located in the passenger shelters, which are custom-made benches designed by Nancy Merritt and bracketed by wisteria-covered arbors. On top of the systems building sits a hand-forged sculpture of a tree, designed by Stuart Keeler and Michael Machnic. This weather vane spreads its roots and rises up through a nine-square grid that represents the city plan of Orenco.